The billionaires' club is one of the most exclusive in the world – but those who achieve massive wealth aren't immune to losing it all again. Read on to discover the stories of these former one-percenters, who prove it takes just a few wrong (and sometimes illegal) moves to get back to rock bottom. All dollar values in US dollars and historic currency conversions correct for the time.
Allen Stanford sure enjoyed the trappings of his $2.2 billion (£1.7bn) fortune, indulging in private planes and yachts during his heyday as an American financier and sponsor of professional sports.
In 2009, however, it was revealed that Stanford had acquired his ill-gotten gains via the second-largest Ponzi scheme in history, according to CNBC. He’s now penniless and behind bars after being sentenced to a 100-year jail term in 2012.
In 2011, Aubrey McClendon was worth $1.2 billion (£934m) as the co-founder of Chesapeake Energy, a pioneer in the use of new technology in the oil and natural gas industry.
But five years later, McClendon was named by Forbes as “America’s Most Reckless Billionaire”. He lost his fortune when he was indicted on charges of conspiring to rig bids for oil and gas leases in March 2016, and died the very next day in a car accident.
The late Bernard Madoff made his billions as a high-flying financial adviser as part of securities firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.
In 2009, he pleaded guilty to defrauding investors to the tune of around $65 billion (£50bn), running the largest Ponzi scheme on record over at least two decades. He was sentenced to 150 years in a maximum-security prison and died behind bars in April 2021, aged 82.
Elizabeth Holmes was initially praised as the CEO of Theranos, an exciting start-up that promised to revolutionise medical testing with inexpensive blood tests. Her 50% stake in the company was worth an estimated $4.5 billion (£3.5bn). At the time, then-19-year-old Holmes was named by Forbes as America's richest self-made woman.
However, a series of allegations surrounding Theranos' frauduent claims and "major inaccuracies" in the testing it was doing on patients followed. Holmes' future fell apart. She and her company were charged with 'massive fraud' and her net worth was listed as $0 by Forbes. Pictured arriving at court with her husband Billy Evans, the disgraced founder is currently serving a prison sentence at a minimum-security facility in Texas, though her 135-month term has been reduced for good behaviour.
Once the richest man in Brazil and the seventh-richest man in the world, Eike Batista largely made his money via his Brazilian natural resource company. He was worth more than $30 billion (£23bn) in 2012.
But in the following two years he lost almost all of his wealth, according to CNBC. In fact, in 2013 alone he kissed goodbye to $19 billion (£14.7bn) – and he was soon forced to pay massive debts to the bank as his energy-related empire collapsed, finally filing for bankruptcy in October that year. Five years later he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for bribing his way to state government contracts.
Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson invested his money from his days as a former soccer player wisely, plunging it into the beverage business. It turned him into a billionaire with a net worth of $3.5 billion (£2.7bn) and he soon acquired English football club West Ham United and the Icelandic bank Landsbanki.
But he was a major victim of the Icelandic banking crisis in 2008. And he also had a number of bookkeeping offences that cost him a considerable amount of money to fight in the courts. In 2009, he was declared bankrupt on the basis that he couldn't pay his debts.
The New York-based but Switzerland-born socialite fell into her $2.5 billion (£1.9bn) fortune from a divorce settlement in 1999, when she split from the late billionaire art dealer Alec Wildenstein.
Jocelyn, known as Catwoman due to her distinctive appearance, was renowned for her $1 million (£780k) a month spending. And in mid-2018, she filed for bankruptcy saying she owed millions, as reported by Fox News. “I was as surprised as anyone because there’s a lot of things involved,” she admitted at the time.
The party billionaire of the 90s, Vijay Mallya made $1.5 billion (£1.1bn) as India’s richest liquor baron and the owner of Kingfisher Airlines.
But in 2012 he fell on hard times after his now-defunct airline racked up debts of more than $1 billion (£778m). Owning huge amounts of money to the banks, he left India quickly – but the banks were soon on his back, and the embattled tycoon was forced to fight an extradition case in London.
Irishman Sean Quinn was known for having his fingers in a few pies. A businessman who invested in everything from the hospital industry to five-star hotels, he was once considered the single richest person in Ireland.
But Quinn made a serious wrong move when he piled money into the Anglo Irish Bank. In 2008, the bank was forced to cease transactions after it was revealed it had been unlawfully providing financial assistance to individuals for the purpose of buying shares. Quinn lost the lion's share of his £2.8 billion (£2.1bn) fortune and was sentenced to a nine-week jail term in late 2012 for contempt of court.
Eighties socialite Patricia (pictured centre) married billionaire and TV mogul John Kluge in 1981, the richest man in America at the time with a $5 billion (£3.8bn) empire. They divorced in 1990, leaving her as one of the nation's richest divorcees according to Forbes, with assets including the grand Albemarle estate in Virginia.
However, an investment in a winery and vineyard near the Albemarle estate did not pay off, and in 2008 she was forced to put it back on the market. A series of unpaid loans and financial downfalls led Patricia to start auctioning off furniture and jewellery (pictured) in a bid to avoid bankruptcy. It didn't work. Her old pal Donald Trump eventually snapped up the vineyard in 2011.
Now discover billionaires' biggest business blunders ever